Atlantic Sunrise
by BlueNeutrino
Summary: Two years after the events of Breaking Dawn, the Cullens relocate to New Hampshire. However, there may be trouble on the horizon in the form of a vampire hunter with a vendetta against all vampires, vegetarian or otherwise.
1. Tabula Rasa

_** Atlantic Sunrise**_

**Summary: Two years after the events of Breaking Dawn, the Cullens relocate to New Hampshire. However, there may be trouble on the horizon in the form of a vampire hunter with a vendetta against all vampires, vegetarian or otherwise.**

**A/N: I did say I wasn't going to start any new fics because I have too many works-in-progress at the moment, but I decided a while ago that I was going to write this and I thought it's about time I got round to it. I came up with the idea for this a while back when I entered a Twilight OC contest, and since the character was never used I decided to write her story for myself.**

******Unlike the vast majority of Twilight fics, this is not going to be a romance! I intend to keep all romantic elements to an absolute minimum so as to focus more on the action.  
**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight.  
**

_**Chapter One – Tabula Rasa**_

The sky was filled with an endless expanse of grey, the thick blanket of cloud draining the color from the sunlight and bathing the world below in a pale, dreary luminescence. In the drab light, darkened further by the shadows cast from leaves and branches, a sleek silver Volvo was making its way through the winding roads in the forests of New Hampshire. It sped on quickly, taking the sharp turns and bends with a reckless gusto, suggesting the driver had little regard for the safety of his passengers. Fortunately, no other vehicles appeared on the road before the Volvo slowed to a mere twenty miles per hour, having neared its destination. It took a turn off from the main road to head towards a clearing in the trees, where the forest opened up to reveal an old Victorian manor house sitting in the middle of an unkempt and overgrown meadow.

The house itself was beautiful, albeit in need of a few repairs. Its architecture was in the traditional New England style, with a high, sloping roof and stone porch, as well as a white painted wooden façade and wooden shutters over the windows. The paint was faded and chipped in several places and more than a few clay tiles were missing from the roof, but despite that the house still retained its essence of elegant luxury that it had no doubt had when it was first built.

A crude driveway cut across the grassland leading up to the front of the house, and gravel crunched as the car rolled up it towards the entrance. The Volvo came to a stop just in front of the porch before the driver's side door swung open and a man stepped out. His honey colored eyes glanced around the clearing for a moment as a light breeze rippled his brown hair, and then he turned his attention back to the passenger side door where a woman was just exiting the car. She got out and surveyed the manor house in front of her without speaking, making no move to brush her dark hair out of her eyes as wind blew it across her face.

"So what do you think to your new home, Bella?" the man asked, walking round the front of the car to go over to his wife.

"It's beautiful," she replied, although for all the emotion in her tone she may as well have said, "I suppose it's alright."

Her husband smiled and wrapped an arm around her waist, giving her a brief squeeze and peck on the cheek before stepping away again to open the back door of the car. "Come on, Renesmee. We're here," he said commandingly.

From inside the car, a pair of dark brown eyes glared up at him from behind a curtain of thick, bronze-colored hair. "Well, I don't _want _to be here," the girl protested, refusing to move, "I want to be back in Forks. With Jacob. Why did I even have to come with you anyway?"

Edward gave an impatient sigh. "Renesmee," he began, "You know that…"

"Alright, fine," she snapped, suddenly getting out of the car and barging past him. "We can't stay in one place for too long at a time, you can't leave me on my own, yada yada yada… I heard you the first fifty times," she said sulkily as she stormed off towards the porch.

Seeing her daughter's reaction, Bella called out to her. "Nessie…" she shouted in a pleading tone, but the half-vampire just ignored her.

"Renesmee!" Edward called after her more forcefully, and she stopped and looked back at him with a roll of her eyes. "I get that you don't like being away from Jacob, but you know it's not permanent and we all have to get used to things changing from time to time. Now help your mother and I unload the trunk," he instructed, heading round to the back of the car where Bella was already beginning to unload her things.

Renesmee just pouted and turned away from him again. "Do it yourself," she said as she strutted off towards the front door, but before she could open it it swung open from the other side.

From inside the house, a handsome blond man with a complexion just as pale as the other three stepped out onto the porch. "Renesmee," he greeted with a warm smile, "Bella, Edward. You've arrived at last. How was the journey?"

"Not too bad, thank you, Carlisle," Edward replied, while Renesmee simultaneously said, "It sucked," and stormed off into the house. Carlisle watched her leave with a raised eyebrow and then turned back to Edward and Bella.

"She's already having trouble adjusting," he commented in a neutral tone.

"It's difficult for her to be away from Jacob," Bella said softly, picking up a box of her things from the trunk and carrying them towards the door, "I can understand that. Try not to give her a hard time."

"Of course not," Carlisle answered sympathetically, before offering to Bella with the box. "Can I help you with that?" he asked, and she handed it over to him with a muttered "thanks" before going back to collect another one from the car.

"Oh great," another voice said from the doorway, and the three of them turned to the see the golden eyes of Rosalie Hale observing them coolly from just inside the threshold. "I see you've finally arrived in this dump."

Carlisle gave her a slight frown. "It's not a dump, Rose," he chided gently as he stepped past her to carry Bella's box into the house. "It needs a bit of work doing, but when we're finished it'll be just as nice as our house in Forks."

Rosalie rolled her eyes. "Yeah, but couldn't we have had the repair work done _before _we moved here? As it is I can barely stand to be in the place." Ignoring Carlisle's disapproving look as he glanced back at her, she swaggered out of the house and peered down at Edward and Bella with a hard stare. "If you two want to pick your room, just to let you know that Em and I have already picked the second one on the left on the first floor; the one with the _least _damp," she said, wrinkling her nose at the last part. "Anyway, have fun unpacking. Emmett and I are going out hunting now. We've been here trying to fix the house up for the past three days and it's about time we got out."

Edward frowned at her in annoyance. "Rose, surely you can go a few days longer without a hunt? We've only just got here; couldn't you at least help us with our things?"

Rosalie glared at him, but before she could retaliate there came the sound of a young, girlish voice from inside the house. "Did you say you were going hunting?" At that, Renesmee suddenly reappeared in the doorway, looking at Rosalie with a hopeful expression. "Can I go with?"

Rose just looked at her coolly for a moment, and then turned to Edward who was giving his daughter a reproving glare. "Renesmee, you don't need to hunt until you've helped…" he was beginning to say, but Rosalie cut over him.

"Of course," she said, giving the half-vampire a warm smile. Rose had a soft spot for Renesmee and was quite content to spoil her with everything she wanted.

Edward turned to Rosalie, ready to redirect his frustration at his daughter towards his adoptive sister instead. "Rose, you can't tell her that it's alright for her to go hunting with you. I'm her father and I'm saying that she can't."

Renesmee could be heard giving an angry huff from the doorway, but Bella crossed to Edward and touched his arm. "Edward," she said gently, "Nessie's really upset and angry about having to be here in the first place; maybe we should give her a break. If we let her work off some of her frustration by going hunting then maybe she'll stop taking it out on the rest of us."

Edward stared at his wife for a few moments with his angry look still on his face, but then his expression softened and he gave a defeated sigh. "Alright," he said, still sounding a little irritable, and then turned back to Renesmee, "Go off and hunt then. But you're going to have to unpack all your own things when you get back; I'm not doing it for you."

Renesmee glared at him. "Fine," she huffed, "But if Jacob were here _he'd _help me unpack." She didn't give Edward chance to respond before calling out, "Emmett? Are you coming? Rose said we're going on a hunt."

From inside the house there came the sound of several bangs and crashes from upstairs, and then there were a few heavy footfalls on the staircase before the bulky form of Emmett Cullen appeared beside Renesmee. "Of course. I was just trying to assemble some furniture, but that can wait," he said, explaining whatever it was that had just fallen over upstairs. "Are you coming too, now?" he said to Renesmee, before hopping outside onto the porch with an enthusiastic spring in his step. "Great, the more the merrier. Let's see what kinds of food New Hampshire has to offer."

He crossed over to Rose and grinned at her, who returned his smile with a smirk and muttered something about how the New England cuisine had got to be better than the accommodation. Renesmee skipped over to join them, for the first time in a while actually looking pleased about something, and Edward found he was unable to stay mad with his daughter much longer when he actually saw her looking happy for a change.

"Just stay safe," he called after her as she and the two vampires headed towards the forest.

Renesmee just rolled her eyes. "Yeah, of course, dad. I'm a freaking half-vampire, remember? What do you imagine is out there that could possibly be dangerous for me?"

Edward knew she had a point, but that didn't stop him being naturally inclined to worry. He was, after all, her father.

"Have fun!" Bella called out, but didn't get a response as Renesmee sauntered off towards the trees alongside Emmett and Rosalie, unaware that there may well be something out there that was dangerous to her after all.

**A/N: Not much to say other than I think that, as Twilight fics go, this may well be a little different to what some people were expecting. You'll see what I mean next chapter. In the meantime, please do review and let me know what you think!**


	2. Cat and Mouse

**A/N: You know one thing that's always annoyed me about Twilight and vampire stories in general? Vampires shouldn't be able to smell blood. In order to be able to smell something there should be trace particles of it in the air, and unless somebody's cut themselves blood particles aren't usually drifting around in the air in sufficient quantity to be smelled from a distance. Can a person's skin have a distinct smell that vampires can pick up on? Well, that's a different matter, but since practically all vampire mythology has vampires as being able to smell blood I'm going to stick with that, even though I know it's inaccurate. It's not like vampires are real anyway, so I don't see that it hurts.**

_**Chapter Two – Cat and Mouse**_

Leaves rustled as the three figures tore through the forest, whipping up turbulent streams of air in their wake and disturbing the peaceful tranquillity of their surroundings. Their feet barely touched the ground, skimming lightly over the leaves and debris that had settled there as they rushed on at an almost incomprehensible speed. Whatever it was they were hunting would barely have chance to see them coming.

Renesmee felt a surge of elation as she flitted through the woodland, neither leading nor being led by the others, simply caught up in the thrill of the hunt. All the troubles that had been preying on her mind – missing Jacob, how she was supposed to settle into a new life here – were fading into insignificance as she turned all her focus onto tracking down this next meal.

The scent of blood filled her nostrils, rich and metallic, with the distinctive underlying smell of pheromones that identified the species – deer, specifically hart, in its prime and full of vitality. It was on the move, running quickly, but the vampires would soon catch up. The smell promised that the meal would be rich and nourishing, and Renesmee was eager to taste it. She didn't need to feed on blood in order to survive, but ordinary food couldn't compare to the complex, richly layered flavours and nutrients offered by the mixture of iron and plasma.

They sped on further, weaving effortlessly in between the conifers in the direction of their prey. They were closing in; Renesmee could sense it. The smell of blood was growing stronger, becoming thicker and more intense, and then…

Unexpectedly, Emmett slowed to a standstill. Taken by surprise, but with more than adequate reflexes to react in time, the other two followed suit and looked at him in confusion, wondering what had prompted him to stop. Emmett cast his gaze around the forest with an expression of deep distaste etched onto his face, seeming confused.

Rosalie scowled at him, irritated that they'd been forced to stop. "Emmett, what are you doing?"

His perplexed frown deepened. "Don't you smell that?"

"Smell what?" Rosalie said with a frustrated glare, but just as the words left her lips she picked up on the scent Emmett was referring to. It had a strong, alkaline smell, like concentrated bleach or kitchen cleaner, but mixed in with that was the scent of haemoglobin and sugar. It smelt disgusting – to vampires, it must be the equivalent of what a rotten piece of meat was like to humans.

The smell was only faint at first, but as the three vampires stood trying to figure out what it was its intensity was increasing. Rosalie could feel it building up on her tongue and she wanted to spit to get the vile taste out of her mouth. "Emmett, what is it?" she snapped, as if expecting him to know the answer.

"I don't know…" he replied, sounding a little apprehensive.

"_Where _is it?" Renesmee added, noting she was finding it almost impossible to pin down where the stench was coming from.

The three of them turned in circles for a moment as they tried to work out what was going on. It was as if the smell itself was encircling them, vile and rotten like curdled blood shot through with battery acid, and for the first time since becoming vampires Emmett and Rosalie were fighting the urge to be sick.

"Do you think there's a chemical plant or something…?" Renesmee was beginning to suggest, but she didn't have chance to finish the sentence before there came a sudden and intense bombardment of sound cutting through the air around them.

Thunderous repeating bangs – like scores of miniature explosions in rapid succession – pummelled their ears, and a split second later the three of them realised it was machine gunfire. Quickly figuring out which direction the shots were coming from, both Rose and Renesmee darted for cover behind the trees, but Emmett, confident that his vampire skin wouldn't take much damage, stayed put as he tried to make out the source.

He peered through the trees, his razor sharp vision honing in on the shapes in front of him, but before he had chance to identify anything he felt the force of several bullets slam into his upper body. At first he ignored them, expecting the shock to wear off in a matter of seconds, but then suddenly an intense pain flared up at the points of impact. It burned into his skin and Emmett felt his muscles tense up in shock. A moment later he realised he was on fire.

Stunned and perplexed, he froze on the spot, unable to move. Around him he could see a faint orange glow as the trees seemed to catch fire too and he heard Rosalie's voice scream his name.

"Emmett!" Rose darted out from her cover to go to her husband's aid, and just as she did so the hail of bullets stopped. Confused and scared, her head whipped round to try and see what was going on, and she just had chance to register a human shaped silhouette vanish behind a tree trunk before a sharp whistle pierced the air.

Rosalie didn't realise the whistle came from a rocket launcher unleashing its load before it was too late.

**A/N: Sorry it was short, but there's little taste of the action to come. Like I said, this is probably going to be a very unorthodox Twilight fic in that it's very light on the romance and heavy on the action. Please let me know what you think! All reviews are appreciated, good, bad or whatever.**


	3. Firepower

**A/N: Action. Shooting. Explosions. I wonder what Stephenie Meyer would make of all this? Anyway, enjoy!  
**

_**Chapter Three – Firepower**_

The rocket shrieked as it hurtled towards Rosalie's face, and she barely managed to duck out of the way to avoiding taking it directly in the nose. As Rose dropped down she felt the rocket singe her hair as it shot just an inch above her head, and then a moment later it hit the tree just behind her and exploded. Burning splinters of wood slammed into Rosalie's back as a sudden burst of flame seared over her skin, and she let out a scream of shock and agony.

Emmett, too, was crying out as he beat at the flames that had erupted from his chest and shoulders, but he was only succeeding at scorching his hands. Dropping to the floor, Rose rolled in the undergrowth to smother the flames before they had chance to burn any deeper, and then she picked herself up and yelled at Emmett in panic. "Roll, you moron. Roll!" she shouted, before shoving him to the ground and trying to get him to turn over to put out the fire. Her own hands burned as she tried to help him, but she didn't care. She wasn't about to watch her husband turn to charcoal.

The flames were defiant, refusing to go out even as Rosalie attempted to smother them. There were several long seconds before whatever it was that was sustaining them finally died, leaving behind glowing orange edges of crisp burnt flesh. Rosalie let out a terrified sob as she saw the damage that had been done, and then tried to pull Emmett to his feet. "Come on, we have to get out of here!" she pleaded with him, but he wasn't moving. It wasn't actually possible for a vampire to lose consciousness, but Emmett was pretty damn close.

All too aware of the forest that was bursting into flames around them, Rosalie knew she had to get Emmett to safety. Glancing round, she looked for Renesmee too, but the kid was nowhere to be seen. A rush of panic washed over her as she realised she didn't know what had happened to Renesmee and she might be about to leave her on her own, but right now Emmett was her priority. If Nessie hadn't had the sense to run by now, then Rosalie wasn't about to go on a suicide mission to help her.

Leaning down, Rosalie picked up Emmett's limp form off the floor and hauled him over her shoulders. She was moving as fast as possible, but even with her vampire strength she was still weakened by the flames and Emmett's bulk would slow her down significantly. The shooter could open fire again at any minute, and Rose knew that if she wanted to escape then she had to get moving.

Guiltily, she glanced round one final time to look for Renesmee, but seeing nothing she made her decision in an instant and turned and fled.

-oOo-

Ducking behind a tree, Miranda Donovan tossed the now empty rocket launcher to one side and then reached for one of the magazines on her belt to reload her AK47. She snapped it into place and cocked the weapon, knowing that the napalm-core bullets would burn right through a vampire's flesh in seconds. This ought to be easy picking. The blood-and-bleach stinkbomb she'd released earlier had done its job well, allowing her to take the vampires by surprise, and now it was just a case of finishing them off.

Peering round the side of the tree, Miranda saw a flicker of movement behind the smoke billowing up from the burning undergrowth, and she peppered it with a few rounds of lead encased napalm. Unaffected, the silhouette quickly vanished behind more trees, and she realised that if one of the vampires had worked out where she was she would have to change position. Picking a new spot, Miranda fixed her attention on another tree a few metres to her left, and then suddenly dashed out from her current location and rolled towards it. She straightened up and kept herself hidden behind the trunk, before glancing sideways again to see another rush of movement among the growing inferno. It seemed that the fire hadn't been quite enough to turn them all to ash just yet.

Darting out from behind her cover, she brought up the semi-automatic weapon and unleashed a hail of bullets at the retreating figures of two of the vampires. One of the females appeared to have gone to the aid of her mate, and now the pair of them were rushing off into the forest back in the direction that they'd come from. Bullets crackled around them and Miranda saw the flashes of fire from where the napalm ignited as the bullets made impact, but disappointingly the vampires appeared to avoid the worst of it and carried on. Miranda swore under her breath. If she'd just been one second faster she probably would've got them.

Still, they were weakened and it would be easy enough for her to catch up with them sooner or later. But right now, she knew she'd counted three vampires earlier and there was the still third one to be taken care of.

Miranda raised the gun again and spun round, looking for where the third vampire had vanished to. Not seeing anything, she twisted her left arm slightly so that she could look at the tracking device on her wrist while maintaining her grip on the weapon. It wasn't a very precise tracker. Unless she somehow managed to embed the vampires with a microchip, the only means she had of determining their location was to detect the concentration of vampire pheromones in the air. The device on her wrist functioned as a detector with an LCD display that showed an arrow pointing in the vampire's general direction, but it couldn't tell her exactly where they were.

As Miranda looked at it, there was a single arrow displaying on the screen pointing in the direction the two vampires had just fled in, accompanied by a number showing an approximate vampire count of two. Miranda frowned at it in confusion. There had _definitely _been three vampires when she'd seen them earlier, so why wasn't she picking up the third one?

An explanation didn't have time to enter her head before she felt something slam into her from behind, and as she fell roughly to the floor she felt the breath knocked out of her and lost her grip on her weapon. Rolling onto her back, she looked up to see the figure of the third vampire standing over her.

It was a girl, turned when she was just a teenager by the looks of things, with long bronze-coloured hair and very dark eyes. The expression on her face seemed scared and confused, but still aggressive. Miranda smiled grimly at the sight, the action causing the muscles in her cheeks to pull at the scar tissue that carved its way over her face and throat. It had been a long time since she'd fought a vampire at close range, and she thought that she was going to enjoy this.

**A/N: The napalm referred to in this chapter is of the original 15 second burning napalm variety, not the ten minute burning napalm B, as I doubt this would be able to be adapted for use in bullets even with weapon design modifications (and a fair amount of author's artistic license).**


	4. One on One

_**Chapter Four – One-on-One**_

Renesmee stared in shock at the woman before her, wondering how – and why – a human such as this had managed to sneak up on them and attack them so effectively. Nessie had already seen Rosalie and Emmett make a run for it, and she wondered if perhaps she should do the same, but when she'd seen the human preparing to shoot again she'd gotten the crazy idea to try and disarm her.

Now that was done – the semi-automatic rifle lying on the floor several feet away from the woman – Renesmee wasn't sure what she should do next. Even with her combination of vampire and other supernatural abilities, after what she'd just witnessed she was still wary about trying anything. Around them, parts of the forest still crackled with flame, and Renesmee knew that if she got into a fight the fire was going to be the biggest danger to her.

For a few brief seconds Nessie continued to stare at the human at her feet, trying to get the measure of her and becoming increasingly perplexed by what she saw. The woman was wearing a black bodysuit and black boots, with several smaller weapons strapped to her belt and for some reason she had on a pair of yellow tinted sunglasses. Her dark hair was windswept and came to just below her shoulders, and she was glaring at Renesmee with a look that showed she was clearly expecting a fight. What was most striking about her though was the vicious scar that twisted its way down the right hand side of her face, beneath her chin and across her throat, and Renesmee knew that whoever this was, she'd been fighting vampires for quite some time.

Nessie began to wonder if she ought to have run when she had the chance.

The half vampire's hesitation proved to be a golden opportunity for the hunter, who quickly made the first move. Pushing up from the floor with her hands behind her shoulders, the woman launched herself back to her feet ready to fight the vampire. Whipping out one of the knives from her belt, she brought it down in a slashing motion across Renesmee's face, who quickly leaned back out of the way. Nessie felt the blade slice over the skin of her neck, but it wasn't sharp enough to actually cut through her toughened flesh.

That was all she needed to prompt her into action. She'd been standing here in astonishment long enough; it was time to actually do something.

Suddenly fighting back, Renesmee brought up one fist to knock the blade out of the woman's hand and then used her other arm in a backward swinging motion to hit the woman in the chest, sending her hurtling backwards several metres. She landed roughly on her side, but rolled smoothly for a few metres before fluidly getting back to her feet. Amazingly, she seemed unharmed, despite having rolled over parts of the burning grass.

Renesmee rushed forward, knowing her only chance would be to knock the human out so that she could get away as soon as possible, but as she propelled herself towards her the hunter suddenly made her next move. Moving quickly even by vampire standards, the woman produced yet another weapon from her belt, and the next thing Renesmee was aware of was a horrible pain searing through her as she was blasted by the current from a fifty thousand volt Taser.

She collapsed to the floor, whimpering as she tried to recover from the debilitating shock, and moments later the hunter was on top of her and had begun punching her viciously in the face. The blows didn't have the necessary strength to really hurt, but they were enough to disorient her even further and it took Renesmee several seconds to clear her head before she had the presence of mind to finally gather all of her strength to throw the woman off of her.

A moment after doing that she wished that she hadn't. As the hunter was thrown back several metres, Renesmee felt something tightening around her throat, and she realised that somehow the woman had managed to loop a length of wire around her neck and still had hold of the other end. A second later the hunter was slammed back against a tree, and the force from her own throw flung Renesmee roughly forward as the wire became taut. She let out a choking gasp. Strangulation couldn't actually kill her, but it definitely hurt like hell.

Having landed in a convenient position to reach for her gun again, the hunter dashed forward just a couple of paces to grab it, at the same time as tugging on the wire. Nessie felt herself roughly jerked forward again, and as she saw the hunter was about to once more open fire she felt a sudden rush of panic. Thinking quickly, she grabbed at the wire and pulled herself to her feet, twisting out of the way of the next shower of bullets and running forward in order to slacken the string. She moved quickly enough that the hunter's aim couldn't keep up, but the hail of lead and fire was still following her and she knew that the stretch of wire wouldn't allow her to run far enough to get away. An idea suddenly occurred to her, and Nessie grabbed at the wire to bring it to her mouth and bit down on it with her razor sharp teeth. Relief washed over her as she felt it sever, and then she was free again and trying to run as fast as possible back towards the house.

She sped forward, desperate to get to safety, and even in her weakened state she quickly rushed on faster as she felt the heat of napalm bullets graze the skin of her back. Two of them embedded themselves in her upper arm and she gasped in pain, unable to remember a time when she'd felt agony as bad as this, but didn't look back. If there was one thing she was still able to do it was to outrun the hunter.

Thinking she might just have gotten away, Nessie was once taken by surprise as there were two sudden explosions off to her right, and she fell sideways as her feet were knocked out from under her. She felt her skin scorch where she landed on some of the burning undergrowth, and she quickly picked herself up again before the flame had chance to penetrate further. Above her, branches severed by the explosions began to come crashing down, and with a frightened scream Renesmee ran forward again to get out from under the burning timber.

She tried to force herself not to panic. It appeared that the hunter had thrown two grenades in her direction but neither of them had directly hit her, so she still had chance to escape. Wishing she hadn't been stupid enough to stay and fight even after Rose and Emmett had run away and hoping desperately that she would make it back alive, Renesmee abandoned all notion she had of fighting and simply turned and ran.


	5. Faceoff

**A/N: A couple of things you should know this chapter: carbon nanotubes are a material made from cylinders of carbon just one atom thick, and are one of the strongest synthetic materials in existence. Aerogel is an ultra-lightweight substance usually made from silicon, which is ten times stronger than reinforced glass and has excellent shock absorbency and insulating properties. An Uzi is a handheld submachine gun which can be about the size of a pistol.**

_**Chapter Five – Faceoff**_

Miranda watched as the explosions from her two grenades tore through the trees, waiting to see if she'd finally managed to kill the vampire girl. As the initial burst of flames cleared to reveal a humanoid silhouette still running onwards, Miranda muttered a curse under her breath. She'd encountered three of them and all three had gotten away. That wasn't like her. Well, she was just going to have to make up for it.

She knew she had the option of pursuing the vampires on foot, but as skilled as she was in combat, she wasn't stupid enough to think she had any chance of catching up with them. No, she knew she was going to need a set of wheels, and fortunately it was only a five minute run to where she'd left her car parked off-road.

Slinging her AK47 back over her shoulder and snatching up her rocket launcher, Miranda turned to run back through the trees. Luckily, the fire she'd started didn't seem to be spreading, the damp soil preventing it from going too far too fast, and she got out of range of the heat quite quickly. Not that the flames could do much damage to her anyway. Her bodysuit had been specially designed to withstand extreme conditions such as fire: it was made of a composite of silicon aerogel and a carbon nanotube mesh, and was practically indestructible. The carbon nanofibres could only be ripped apart by superheated lasers or extreme force on the scale of a kiloton TNT blast, whereas the aerogel was highly shock absorbent and prevented her from taking much damage by blunt force. It was also a near perfect insulator, and although that had its advantages, it also meant she got very warm very quickly while wearing it. For that reason, parts of the suit were made from the woven carbon nanotubes for ventilation instead of the composite material elsewhere. It was by far the best – and most expensive – prototype armor that the military had available, and Miranda knew how lucky she was to have friends in a position to get it for her.

Within minutes Miranda arrived back at where she had her black armored Jaguar XJ Sentinel parked just a few metres from the road, and she tossed the rocket launcher and the assault rifle in through one of the back doors before climbing into the driver's seat. She turned the key in the ignition and revved the engine, before slamming the car into reverse and speeding backwards onto the road, where she handbrake turned to face the direction she wanted to be going in. Switching the car back into its forward gears again, she quickly picked up speed as she followed the direction indicated by the vampire tracker on the dashboard.

After a couple of minutes, she reached up to take off the tinted sunglasses she was wearing, deciding that she wasn't going to need them anymore. The napalm bullets she'd been using often caused bursts of flame to flare up at the gun's muzzle, so she wore them to protect her eyes, but she'd decided that it might be time for a change of ammunition.

The arrow on the tracker display suddenly spun round, and Miranda slammed on the brakes as she realised it meant she would have to take the next turn-off in the road. Turning the Jag off of the tarmac onto a gravel roadway that snaked through the trees, she crept the vehicle a short way along the crude road and then brought it to a stop, deciding not to get too close before she had chance to arm herself.

She got out of the car and headed round to the trunk, which she opened to decide which weapons she should take with her. Inside, there was a metal box held closed with clasps, which Miranda picked up and unfastened before lifting the lid. The box contained an array of even more ammunition: a variation on the napalm-core bullets she'd used in the forest. These rounds weren't incendiary, but instead contained a core of radioactive plutonium-239. Miranda made a point of using them less than the napalm ones so as to avoid over-exposure to radiation, but when used against vampires these bullets could be even more effective.

The chemical in a vampire's skin that caused them to sparkle when exposed to the UV rays in sunlight was the exact same chemical that would cause them to burst into flame when exposed to the even higher frequency gamma rays emitted by plutonium. It didn't necessarily kill them in every instance, but if sufficient quantities of plutonium were absorbed into a vampire's blood it would cause them to chargrill from the inside out. For that reason, this was Miranda's favorite weapon to use against them, despite the increased risk to herself.

She decided to take a few plutonium magazines to go with a handheld Uzi submachine gun, and then picked up some rounds for use in a Sig Sauer pistol, the same kind that was the standard issue to police forces all over the US. She had four of those guns in question stored in the trunk, and decided to take two of them with her which she preloaded and tucked into her belt. That would probably be sufficient in terms of firepower, which just left her to decide which close combat weapons she should take. She opted for a duralumin ax with micro-serrations on the blade, and a handful of steel throwing knives.

Deciding that would be adequate armament, Miranda closed the trunk and checked her wrist tracker again, which was now displaying an approximate vampire count of eight. Not the most favorable of odds, but she'd faced worse.

Beginning to make her way through the trees, Miranda followed the road until the forest opened up into a clearing, in the middle of which she could see an old Victorian house was situated. That must be where the vampires had decided to nest, and Miranda began to wish she hadn't left her rocket launcher behind, thinking how easy it would be to just send a couple of blasts in through the window. But she was here now, and she was eager to get on and do the job instead of going back.

Taking out one of the Sigs, Miranda began to run forward with the intention of heading round to the back of the house, but as she saw the front door open she suddenly slowed to a standstill and raised the pistol, ready to take aim. As the door opened fully a tall, blond haired man stepped out, and Miranda fired two shots at him in rapid succession. The shots collided with the doorframe and he ducked back inside, but just as Miranda was preparing to fire one more he flung up his hands in a gesture of surrender and shouted out, "Wait!"

She paused. She wasn't sure what made her do it, knowing full well that this could be a trick, but she was still a hundred yards away from the entrance and it was still possible that the man wasn't actually a vampire at all. Miranda considered that for a moment, and then deciding that his pale complexion made that unlikely she kept the gun raised.

Holding her fire, Miranda waited for the man to step fully out of the house and waited to see what he had to say. He came forward out of the porch and then descended the two stone steps to join her in the meadow. Realising he was advancing on her, Miranda's finger tightened on the trigger. "Stay where you are!"

He stopped dead, his hands still raised. "We aren't what you think we are," he said calmly.

Smirking, Miranda laughed at him sceptically. "You think you're the first vampire to try that one on me?" she taunted. Behind him, she saw the forms of five more vampires – not including the ones she'd encountered earlier - stepping out of the house to join him, and she quickly brought up the other pistol to cover herself. "Don't even think about trying anything, because I'm warning you it's not a good idea."

The blond man just shook his head slowly. "We don't want to hurt you."

He sounded quite convincing, actually, but she wasn't about to let herself fall for it. "Pity, because I can't say I feel the same way."

The blond man didn't respond immediately, but one of the vampires behind him – a man with bronze coloured hair matching the girl she'd seen earlier – came to stand beside him and muttered something in his ear. He probably though Miranda couldn't hear him, but she could. "I know why she's doing this. She's thinking about her father; he was killed by vampires."

At those words, Miranda's aim suddenly faltered as her shock caused her to lower the guns by a few inches, before she quickly recovered. He was right, but how on Earth had he known? Had he somehow been involved in it, all those years ago? "How do you know about that?" she snapped at him.

He didn't answer, but instead the blond man turned to him to mutter something back. "What's her name? Can you tell?"

Now there was no way he could answer this, Miranda knew for sure, but then the bronze haired man said, "Miranda. Her name's Miranda." She gaped at him, thinking she probably ought to shoot him on the spot, but her shock had rendered her unable to pull the trigger.

"How…?" she stuttered, too speechless to even complete the sentence.

The blond man looked at her again, holding eye contact. "I can understand you being angry and upset about what happened to your father, Miranda, but you have to understand we're not the enemy."

She shook her head to try and clear it, convinced they were trying to play mind games on her. "Bullshit."

He looked upset by her reaction and seemed to be pleading with her to believe him, but as she tried to figure out what was going on, a female, pixie-like vampire on the man's other side approached him and said, "Carlisle, I can't smell her."

She seemed unnerved and Miranda smirked inwardly, thinking, "_No, you wouldn't,_" but then the bronze haired vampire spoke again.

"It's the suit, Alice," he explained, "It stops us being able to smell her blood."

Miranda turned to gape at him again, and then as she worked out what was going on her look of astonishment turned into a glare. How could they expect her to believe they weren't the bad guys when they were playing games with her like this? "Are you fucking reading my mind?" she snarled at him, not giving him chance to answer but instead just squeezing the trigger on the Sig in her left hand. The bullet shot towards him, her aim straight, but he twisted out of the way at the last second and the metal cylinder instead collided with the wooden façade of the house behind him.

Miranda gritted her teeth, thinking she really wasn't on form today. Even a vampire couldn't move faster than a speeding bullet, but then she realised that if he was reading her mind he would've known she was about to fire before she even pulled the trigger. She shot him a filthy look, angry that his ability meant that he was able to outsmart her, but then realised that if she actually wanted to do some damage she would have to make a decision quickly, and do something he wouldn't be able to react to in time.

Barely thinking, she twitched the pistol just slightly to the left and squeezed the trigger again. She saw the cautious look on the vampire's face turn to one of horror as he realised what she doing, but it was too late for him to stop her. The bullet whistled past him and slammed into the woman who had been standing just a couple of paces further back off to his left. "Bella!" he cried out before running over to her.

The bullet had hit her squarely in the stomach and she gasped as she felt the sudden shock of it slamming into her. She collapsed to her knees, putting a hand to the wound where a small blue flame had already begun to burn as the plutonium reacted with her skin.

All five of the other vampires rushed over to her, the blond one trying to maintain his composure but their collective sense of panic apparent. They were all crowding round her wondering what to do, and Miranda allowed herself a smug smirk of satisfaction. Then the bronze haired one turned his attention back to her with a look of pure fury.

Miranda's grin faltered as she realised she'd just invited a hell of a lot of trouble, and the vampire suddenly began to rush towards her with a vicious snarl. Some of the others leapt up to try and stop him, with cries of, "Edward, no!" but he just brushed them off.

Realising that an open field was the last place she wanted to face a furious vampire and the rest of his clan, Miranda turned and ran back towards the wood where she knew there was cover. She'd just reached the treeline when she heard him call out in a semi-crazed voice from right behind her, "As if you could outrun me!"

"As if I'd need to," she quipped, suddenly unharnessing the double-edged ax from where it was strapped to her back and swinging it back at him, allowing the momentum of his run to do most of the work. It hit him straight in the face as he collided with it, and the micro-serrations on the blade were enough to penetrate even hardened vampire flesh.

He let out a cry of pain as blood spurted down from his eyes and nose to drench his face, and Miranda was about to bring up one of her pistols to finish him off. However, two of the other vampires had caught up with them and even as she let out the first round of fire, one of them pounced on her and ripped the gun out of her hand. He knocked her to the floor, but she didn't give him any chance to do anything else before she switched to the Uzi and let out a burst of rounds into his face. He fell back with a scream of agony and Miranda then turned her attention to the other vampire – the female – but just as she was about to fire the vampire leapt over her, effortlessly avoiding the hail of bullets.

With the vampire landing just behind her, Miranda switched to the ax again and swung it at the girl, but she just dodged out of the way as if she'd seen it coming. Miranda quickly followed it up with another attack, but the vampire efficiently blocked it, and even when Miranda momentarily lowered the ax to launch a surprise attack with one of the throwing knives, the vampire just dodged smoothly out of the way as if she were able to anticipate every move Miranda made. Wondering how she was supposed to get the upper hand when the vampire seemed to be able to predict her every move, Miranda tried dropping down low to swing the ax at the vampire's ankles, only to find the girl effortlessly jumped over it. The momentum of the swing caused Miranda to lose her balance, and she staggered backwards for a few moments, dropping her guard.

With ease, the vampire suddenly grabbed hold of the ax handle and wrenched it out of her hands, before punching Miranda in the stomach to knock her back several yards. Winded, she picked herself up and looked around to see the one called Edward had partly recovered, his face already nearly healed, and she realised she couldn't fight them. She was down to just one pistol and the throwing knives, but these vampires seemed to be different from the norm. She couldn't surprise them; no matter how hard she tried. The Edward one could read her mind, and the girl she'd just fought seemed to have a strange presentience that meant she knew every move Miranda was going to make. If she had more firepower then maybe she could take them, but right now fighting didn't seem to be the best move.

Miranda turned and began to retreat, taking out one of the knives and throwing it back towards the vampires, not necessarily expecting to hit them but just giving them something to dodge to slow them down. She reached the car and dived into the driver's seat, slamming it into reverse. One of the vampires appeared in her rear view mirror, and she put her foot to the floor so that the car shot backwards and slammed into him. There was a clunking sound on the roof as the vampire rolled violently over it, but she wasn't worried about any damage to the car. It was government-standard missile proofed for a reason.

The brakes screeched at her as she once again handbrake turned to face the right direction, and then the car was speeding off, leaving the vampires far behind.

Several minutes passed before Miranda finally allowed herself to relax, confident that they hadn't followed her. Letting out a sigh of relief, she reached into the glove compartment for a cell phone and hit number one on speed dial. She scowled in annoyance when it went straight to voicemail, but left a message anyway. "Rook, it's Miri," she began, sounding a lot calmer than she actually felt. "I'm in New Hampshire. There's about nine or so vampires nesting in a house just north of Dover, and I managed to shoot a few of them but I think I'm gonna need some help to finish them off. They're not… well, they're not _normal, _Rook, even for vampires. Some of them are kinda weird – there's this one guy who I think can read my mind, so if you could try and look into that for me. Maybe the Agency could give me a brainwave scrambler or something. And then there's this other one who seems to be able to know everything that's going to happen before it actually happens, if you've ever heard of that before? And one of them doesn't even show up on my tracker. I dunno, Rook, it's all kind of weird… If you could do some research on it and get back to me that'd be great. Oh, and do you mind sending me a new duralumin ax?" She was about to finish the call there, but then remembered the one other thing she ought to mention. "I might also have accidentally set fire to part of the New Hampshire forest, if you don't mind clearing that up for me. Thanks, Rook. I'll call you again when I'm back at the safe house."

She hit the button to end the call and tossed the phone onto the passenger side seat, before letting out a long, slow breath. The adrenaline buzz was beginning to wear off now, and she was feeling much more calm and collected. This was the first time she'd run away from any vampire in years, and although in some ways that felt like a failure, she honestly hadn't encountered any vampires like this before. It wasn't so much a failure as it was an opportunity: the chance to push herself even further in her war against every bloodsucking leech on this earth. All she had to do was a bit of research, rethink her strategy and rearm, and then she'd be back.


	6. A Brief Respite

**A/N: I'd like to say thanks to all my reviewers for your support for this story! We'll be taking a short break from the action now, but I hope you enjoy this chapter anyway. A couple of facts you'll need to know for this chapter – the Sievert is a unit of radiation dosage, and the average background radiation dosage for most of the US is three millisieverts.**

_**Chapter Six – A Brief Respite**_

With a grimace, Jasper braced himself for the next stab of pain as Carlisle's forceps twisted underneath his skin, extracting the final sliver of metal from his scorched flesh. A sharp hiss escaped his mouth as the bullet fragment was pulled free, and then Carlisle leaned back and brought the shard up to his face to examine it more closely. He looked at it thoughtfully for a moment, before commenting drily, "You're lucky she shot you in the face."

Jasper, his face a sore mess of ruptured flesh and burns, couldn't even move his muscles to form a sceptical expression in response to that. "Please do explain," he mumbled, trying to move his mouth as little as possible.

Carlisle looked up at him, before setting the forceps to one side and reaching for his anaesthetic spray and stitches to continue dressing Jasper's wounds. "The bullets won't go through bone," he said to clarify, "But they will penetrate soft tissue and they have a radioactive core, which is why they burn so badly. As it is, they've just glanced off your skull and left behind a few fragments, but if you'd been shot with enough of these in the right place then they could have caused you to go up in flames. I've never seen anything like this before, but I estimate that each bullet contained about ten millisieverts of radiation, and I'd say three of these into soft tissue would be highly dangerous, and five or more fatal."

Jasper didn't react, trying to remain as still as possible as Carlisle treated him, but Alice, who was sat just behind him with a comforting hand on his shoulder spoke instead. "Carlisle, how do you know all that? And why is the radiation so deadly?"

"I've heard stories," he began to explain, "Of vampires that went hunting in New Mexico around the time of the Manhattan Project. There was a city several miles from a nuclear test site, but it still accumulated some extra levels of radioactivity from the dust that was scattered during the explosions. The excess levels weren't enough to affect the human population, and nobody at the time really understood the effects of nuclear radiation anyway, but it was enough to affect the vampires that were hunting there. At first it caused them to overheat, and then after prolonged exposure they caught fire. When I heard about it it led me to do some more research into the matter, and it seems that radiation is a vampire's only known weakness. I've never encountered it being used as a weapon like this before though. How does that feel?" he finished as he tied off some stitches on Jasper's face.

Jasper grunted and then said, "Better, thank you." It had been a long time since he'd felt pain like this, but now that the metal fragments had been removed the wounds were starting to heal, and he was more than able to cope with it.

On the other side of the room, Emmett, who was lying on the couch still not fully recovered from his own injuries, gave him an ironic grin. "Hey Jasper? You look awful."

The corners of Jasper's mouth twitched slightly in response. "Likewise."

Rosalie, who was sitting beside Emmett, sucked in a breath of frustration and shot her husband a reproachful look. "This isn't funny," she said, getting up and beginning to pace up and down, mirroring the actions of Edward on the other side of the room, who had neither sat down nor spoken since Carlisle had extracted the bullet from Bella's stomach an hour ago. "The pair of you could have died!" Rosalie said, "We all could have. We need to do something about her."

At those words, Edward at last seemed prompted to say something and paused in his pacing in front of Renesmee and Bella to look at the others. "Yes, we do," he said passionately. "She's trying to kill us and we need to do something to stop her. If she comes back we've got more than enough time to plan an ambush to finish her off."

Carlisle gave his adoptive son a disapproving look at that statement, and Esme, who was sat close to him, shook her head. "Edward, we can't kill her," she said gently. "I know she'd tried to hurt us, but she's still human. She just doesn't understand us. We need to show her we're not the enemy."

Edward shook his head emphatically and clenched his fists, clearly frustrated. "But I heard what she was thinking. She _won't _listen to reason. We'll have to fight her."

Carlisle, now finished with Jasper, stood up and turned all his attention to Edward. "What we have to do, is _understand _her," he emphasised. "Only then can we know how best to proceed."

Edward continued to glare at him. "My wife was shot and my daughter was almost killed!" he snapped. "I can't just let that go."

Still retaining his calm composure, Carlisle held his gaze. "A lot of things _could _have happened, Edward," he said evenly, "Emmett and Jasper were nearly killed too, but fortunately they weren't. That means we can still resolve this without anyone dying needlessly, if we can find another way to get through to her." Edward looked like he was about to say something else, but Carlisle continued before he had chance to protest any further. "Don't argue with me, Edward. I won't have you turn your mind to killing a human."

Edward looked angry for a moment longer, but then gave a defeated sigh and nodded, turning his attention back to Bella and Nessie to make sure they were alright.

Carlisle looked back at Emmett before asking another question. "Tell us again what happened in the forest."

Rosalie and Emmett looked at each other for a brief moment before Emmett answered, "We were just hunting, and then all of a sudden there was this awful smell and she came at us out of nowhere with all this gunfire and explosions. I got hit and caught fire, then Rosalie carried me off. That's all I can remember before I ended up back here."

Carlisle nodded, and then turned to Renesmee. "And where were you when this was happening?"

Nessie glanced at Bella, who had an arm wrapped protectively around her, before answering, "I was hiding, trying not to get hit, then I saw Rose and Emmett run off and…"

She was about to continue but Edward interjected, "Wait, they ran off?" he said angrily, before rounding on Rosalie. "How could you do that? Just run away and leave her there?"

Rose glared back at him. "Well I couldn't see her, could I?" she snapped back, "I assumed she'd already run away, which she would have done if she had any sense."

"Don't you say that about my daughter!" Edward shouted back, the whole thing beginning to turn into a full blown argument, but another voice interrupted with, "Enough!"

It was Bella, who was still hugging a terrified looking Renesmee. "Don't start with the yelling now, Nessie's already seen enough violence for one day," she said before turning to her daughter. "Nessie, what were you going to tell us?" she said gently.

"I was going to say that I tried to fight her," she said quietly, prompting yet another exclamation from Edward.

"Fight her? Renesmee, I told you to be careful! Why didn't you just run away?" he said angrily, which just earned him another reproachful glance from Bella.

Nessie looked at the floor and shrugged. "I dunno, I thought I could take her, I guess. I was planning to use my power, but then I realised I didn't know what I was doing. She was so strong and so aggressive, and I didn't know what image to show her in case I made things worse. I mean, I know I'm not very old, but I've just never seen anything like it before," she said, sounding completely bewildered and overwhelmed after everything that had happened that day.

"None of us have," Carlisle replied, giving her a comforting smile before continuing, "which is why we need to get a better idea of who she is and why she's doing this. Edward says she's hunting us because her father was killed by vampires, is that right?" He turned to look at Edward, who nodded in confirmation. "In that case, we know her motivation. Now we need to know her strategy and who or what may be helping her." Carlisle then turned back to look at Jasper and Alice, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Alice, you couldn't see her in the forest because Renesmee was there, correct?"

Alice nodded, "Yes, that's right. I can't see the future involving Renesmee."

"So we asked Renesmee to stay inside when Miranda came to the house, and you were able to predict her attacks?" Carlisle continued.

"Yes, mostly," Alice replied, "but she's very impulsive. She tends to make things up as she goes a lot; her future keeps changing."

Carlisle's brow furrowed into a frown as he continued to think. "But now that she knows we're here, is she planning on coming back?"

Again, Alice gave a nod. "She is, but it's all very vague at the moment. She hasn't thought of a strategy yet. All I can see is her rearming, and going to see a man for advice. A friend of hers, I think; I don't know who. Then she intends to come back and finish us off."

There was silence for a few moments after that as Carlisle didn't respond immediately, and the others waited to see what he had to say. At length, he gave a nod and spoke out again. "She certainly seems very hostile, but there may still be a way for us to resolve this without resorting to violence," he said in the tone of someone who'd just come up with a plan, and then he turned to look at Renesmee. "Nessie, how would you feel about seeing Jacob again?"


End file.
